The Expression of Silence // An interview with John Hosack, director of PATER

More and more these days, filmmakers have been looking to crowdfunding sites (e.g. Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, etc...) as avenues to get their projects off the ground (see our recent post). Crowdfunding campaign videos and trailers are becoming an art form in their own right, so finding the best soundtrack for them is all the more important.

The creative new sci-fi film Pater recently came to our attention when they licensed "Love Story" a track by Matthew Morgan through our site. We got a chance to ask the Denver-based director John Hosack a few questions about the importance of music in his film.

What's the film about?

Pater is about fatherhood in desperate times, and about our place in the universe. The young Janus and elderly Progenitor are two aliens whom having lost their home planet to self-destructive wars are desperately searching for a planet with life and civilization to call a home. We join them as they land on a prospective planet only to find the ruins of another civilization.

What was the process of finding music for your film?

In order to promote Pater, we were looking for music that not only conveyed the emotional tone of the film itself, but music that would help the audience connect to our message. So we wanted something friendly and inspiring, but also introspective and maybe a touch solemn. Finding music that would fit that bill proved to be a difficult task, as several members of our crew searched creative commons sites for the perfect track, all to no avail. Luckily, our cinematographer Robert Hardy, who had previously written about Marmoset for NoFilmSchool, had been searching the site in order to find a song. He emailed everyone with the Matthew Morgan track and we knew that we had our song.

How important do you feel the element of music is in your film?

Music is going to be an important element in Pater because the film will rely heavily on the emotion of its characters. Well chosen music has the power to amplify that emotion and turn strong visuals into an overall powerful audio/visual experience for the audience. I also have scenes with no dialog and so the music needs to say what the characters are not. Music is the expression of the silence in my film, if that makes any sense.

How important do you feel music is in cinema in general?

I think a film with no music can still be a good film, but I see no virtue in that. I think music and cinema are a perfect match. A solid score can turn a mediocre film into a great one. Hopefully, it will do that for me.

It's through the addition of music that film can be the most expressive artistic medium of our age.

Check out the video below and visit their Kickstarter campaign to help get this wonderful project up and running.